Domino’s Pizza Australia
and apparel maker Bonds have topped a report that ranks the Facebook presence of the top 20 ASX-listed company-owned brands by fan numbers, but relatively low engagement levels across most brands listed in the report have indicated a need for improvement.

The report found that the pizza chain, with 850,790 fans, at the time of research in May and June, had a 3.9 per cent engagement rate. Bonds with 839,484 fans had only 0.6 per cent, both far behind Coles with 408,340 followers and an engagement of 8.1 per cent and Telstra 24x7 with 377,630 and 4.2 per cent.

The engagement score counts how often customers respond to a Facebook post by commenting or sharing it with others.

The Facebook Performance Report, published for the second time this year by the consultancy company Online Circle, included listed companies in their own right for the first time ­following an ASX call for businesses to monitor sites that regularly contain posts about their business with the issuance of Guidance Note 8 last month.

AFR
AFR

“The most obvious point is that some brands have very high ‘Like’ numbers, [but] not many of those also have good engagement," said
Jeff Richardson
, chief executive at Online Circle.

“Engagement rates of 10 per cent or higher are very healthy. Below 4 per cent over a period of time suggests the page isn’t working well enough. And somewhere in between shows they can get people ‘Liking’, commenting, and sharing their posts.

“It should be said that the higher the number of ‘Likes’, the harder it is to maintain a high per cent engagement," he added.

‘Genuine’ conversations

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Domino’s marketing director Allan Collins said the brand’s fan growth came from having genuine conversations with consumers rather than just using Facebook as a marketing tool to promote offers and discounts.

He said it recently made chief executive
Don Meij
available to respond to questions on its Facebook page and he received 2000 questions.

“Generally, we use Facebook to engage. If we had nobody, we’d have a problem. We’re extremely open and transparent and engage in two-way conversation," he said.

Telstra’s Monty Hamilton, head of digital channel operations, said its page grew organically and is primarily a support service in addition to telephone or website support functions.

“Social media does well where there’s passion. If your brand doesn’t have a lot of passion, you need to find a different strategy for utilisation, but what you probably firstly need to be doing is monitoring instead creating," Mr Richardson said.

His advice for companies wanting more fans and engagement was to pay attention to what’s resonating and keep an eye on competitors here and abroad for ideas.

“Brands should avoid generic posts such as ‘it’s Friday, what are you doing this weekend?’," he added. “It doesn’t really bring much value to the audience. Make sure your posts are relevant to your brand and persona."